Anastasia Again!

Twelve-year-old Anastasia is horrified at her family's decision to move from their city apartment to a house in the suburbs.
To Anastasia, the suburbs mean split-level houses, giant color televisions topped with fake fruit, and people who eat frozen dinners. Cambridge has her bicycle-print wallpaper, her father's poetry books, and an echoey hallway she has thumped since toddlerhood.
Her parents insist the family has outgrown the apartment: her father needs study shelves, her mother needs painting light, and two-year-old Sam needs a yard.
Surrender seems out of the question until they tour an old Victorian house with a curving staircase and a tower room all her own.

• Sibling Dynamics: Two-and-a-half-year-old Sam speaks in full sentences, refuses toilet training, and threatens to derail Anastasia’s social life by flashing dinner guests in his raincoat.
• Unlikely Friendship: Gruff neighbor Gertrude Stein lives alone with memories of a long-lost romance until Anastasia buys her a companion goldfish and schemes to draw her back into the world.
• Coming of Age: Juggling mixed feelings about briefcase-toting Robert from Cambridge and an athletic new boy down the street, Anastasia navigates seventh-grade crushes, awkward phone calls, and growing pains.
• Also by This Author: Number the Stars, The Willoughbys and Gooney Bird Greene.